Does night-life keeps you awake?

And...
you understand by nightlife a bat fluttering by, a fox noiseless
huting, the cry of an owl, eventualy combined with some red wine
and camenbert under a full moon?
Then you're welcome with the...

ZWG

Who are we?

ZWG is the abbreviation of Zoogdierenwerkgroep, whitch
can be translated as Mammalworkinggroup. The ZWG is one of the
workinggroups of the Jeugdbond voor
Natuurstudie en Milieubescherming (JNM). The JNM, on
organisation fo young people from 8 until 25 years old, occupies
itself with everthing that blooms and grows. There are 45
divisions scattered over Flanders who organise weekly all kinds
of activities. The workinggroups study the different aspects of
nature (mammals, plants, birds, ...) and enviroment and
constitute an important part of our organisation.

What do we want?

Although almost every lover of nature cares about mammals, few
is known about the actual distribution of mammals in Flanders. We
are working on that problem.

The goal of the ZWG can be
summarized as the study and protection of the wild
mammals and there biotope.

What are we doing?

Study and research:

Pellets of
owls are collected and sifted out so we can
determin the name of the species of each
mammalscul. When rare species are found the area
can be searched more intens.

An example of a more intens investigation is
catching mammals with life-traps. Those traps are
designed to trap the mice alive. After
determining the species the mice are released.

A third methode consist of a focused search for
bats. The bats are tracked with a bat-detector.
This detector alows us also to determin the
species of the bat.

All other kinds of recordings are ofcourse also
collected. (eg. viewings, road-kills, tracks,...)

Protection:Distributiondata are very imported. You can
use them to:

inform the manager of a naturereserve so he (or
she) can adjust the management in favour of the
mammals.

inform the government when the status of a
species is critical. The government will demand
data before they will enact laws to protect a
species or its biotopes.

inform an owner of a house when there is a colony
of bats roosting in his house.

You want some more action? What about preparing
ice-cellars, bunkers, ... as hibernacula for bats.

Our activities

Yearly there is a least one summercamp. During that camp
we do a lot of investigations like: trapping mice,
sifting out pellets, searching for bats with
bat-detectors, searching church-attics for bats and
owls,...

Throughout the year there are some weekend. These are
most of the time a short editon of a summercamp. Sometime
we combine them with a lecture.

During the winter we visit hibernacula, sift out pellets,
process the collected data,...

Something for everybody

Activities:

If you want to expand your knowlegde about mammals, joining
our activities is the best thing you can do. Throughout the year
we have a large offer.

Eliomys:

This is the quarterly magazine of the ZWG. It contains all
sorts of articles about mammals, sphere and scientific reports of
summercamps and weekend, special investigations, press-cutings
about mammals, announcements of activities, ... (Alas only in
Dutch available)

The unique ZWG-T-shirt:

It makes every ZWG member recognizable. At the moment you can
even choose out of two different designs!

Sphere en sociability:

You 'll find it on all of our activities, from summercamp upto
committee-meeting, the ideal mix of information and relaxation.
The ZWG is a firm circle of friends, and you are welcome to join
us!

The
recipe for a healty and witty live:
Join the ZWG with heart and soul!

Mammalinventory
of Flanders

In 1995 the ZWG
started with a largescale mammalinventory
of Flanders. The goal is to publish a new and recent
distributionatlas of the Flemisch mammals in the autumn
of 2001. It wil cover the periode from 1986 until 2000.
The previous atlas dates from 1986 and there changed alot
since then. Meanwhile we publish in 1997 a priliminary
atlas. it was also publish on the WWW. Click here to view it.